On Mon, 2 Nov 2009 10:57:45 -0800 (PST), Lew

But to make MGW look nice and warm, it has to
be coddled along. I find selenium toning is
essential (for my purposes...), and whatever
we can do to enhance the effectiveness of
selenium toner we should do. For starters, no
hardener is necessary anywhere in the
process. This means a plain fixer will
suffice (I use a simple sodium thiosulfate
and sodium sulfite fixer, after a formula by
Ansel Adams in his book, "The Print".)

The choice of developer is crucial to the
final tone of MGW after toning in selenium
(or other 'warm' toners, such as brown
toner).

Many years ago I was told that papers respond
more 'warmly' if the developer contains
potassium ions. In other words, a developer
could be made to produce warmer results if
the sodium salts were exchanged for their
potassium counterparts. Hence, potassium
sulfite and potassium carbonate would be
handy. I was lucky in my hunt and found some
anhydrous potassium sulfite being sold as
surplus in nice clean powder form in boxes
marked Kodak Canada.

I've experimented with various paper
developers and I like the old Ansco 120
formula best. (Very different from the old
Agfa 120 paper developer, so avoid
confusion.)

Here is the formula I've come up with for my
day to day print developing. I mix it
directly to a working solution (I hate
storing piles of bottles with concentrates. I
have the raw powder chemicals and a balance
to weigh them out, so what else do we need?)

After a session's use, this developer
(remember, it's a working solution) can be
stored and re-used, but I have never liked
the results I saw from doing this. Just a
slightly-off tonality, I always thought. But
it's a matter of opinion.

Note that Potassium Bromide is listed at 3
grams per liter working solution, but could
be varied up or down depending on one's
desire. I'd say the extremes would be one
gram to about twelve per liter. Personal
choice and experimentation ...

===================================
120 (Potassium) Print Developer - formula for
one liter *working* solution:

distilled water,
 at working temperature
   20-23 degrees C. ............. 800 ml

Metol ........................... 3.5 gram

Potassium Sulfite anhydrous ..... 13.5 gram
*(see note below)

Potassium Carbonate anhydrous ... 11 gram

Potassium Bromide ............... 3 gram OR
30 ml of ten per cent solution

distilled water,
 at working temperature,
  to make ....................... 1000 ml

-----------------------------------------
*NOTE: Potassium Sulfite is produced in
solution by combining Potassium Metabisulfite
2 parts (very slightly less), and Potassium
Hydroxide one part, to yield three parts
Potassium Sulfite. This is approximate but
close to exact (error around five per cent).
======================================

I rinse my prints very thoroughly after the
developer in place of an acid stop bath. Stop
only provides an acidic environment in which
developer cannot function, but the developer
is still present. It's easier to avoid
staining later in the process if the
developer is removed by water rinses.

I also use a non-acid fix because I selenium
tone all my prints, and any acid in contact
with selenium toner is likely to cause stains
on the print. (Acid in a fixer is there
because hardener requires an acidic
environment. A modern paper like MGW is quite
hard enough out of the box; no hardener is
necessary from us. We are exercising some
slight degree of care in handling our prints,
I presume? Hardener is for automated
processors and minimum wage employees.)

The warmth in the warm tone will not really
be apparent after development. It appears
during the toning step. Since the fix I use
has no acid, I can slip my prints directly
from the fixer into the selenium toner -
which is largely composed of thiosulfate, so
a bit of fixer clinging to the print is
insignificant (as long as there is no
developer mixed in there, eh??)

I like to use my selenium toner fairly
concentrated: diluted 1+5 with distilled
water. (Speaking of the Kodak product, KRST,
"Kodak Rapid Selenium Toner".) I tone for ten
minutes, and sometimes I even warm up the
toner to around body temperature.

Brown toner might be useful for the project
you mention. Brown toner can be used in
conjunction with selenium to yield different
"levels" of warmth, depending on which toner
is applied first. It's best to rinse the
print between toners.

Brown toner is prone to giving off hydrogen
sulfide. I've only used the version that is
made up from potassium polysulfide and
carbonate (very cheap and easy to make). It
does not require darkness, so don't do it in
the darkroom; maybe don't even do it indoors.
I doubt the level of hydrogen sulfide from a
home made toner could get high enough to harm
a human, but believe me it can get high
enough to sting your eyes and nose and gross
you out. But it's only slightly worse than
eating a mess o' beans and standing in the
closet (or darkroom...) long enough for
digestion to occur.

Selenium toner gives off smell too: ammonia.
It's funny how all these things we love to do
involve the gasses and smells that often come
from human life processes. Toner will give
off enough ammonia to sting the eyes, but
we've been around ammonia since before we
were human. It's a product of the
decomposition of urine; human olfactory
equipment can detect ammonia in the tiniest
amounts, long before concentration gets high
enough to hurt us. I suppose hunters sniffed
out prey by following this molecule. Very
much the same is true of hydrogen sulfide. It
is do distinctive to us, and detected at such
low concentration by our noses, that it is
hard to imagine being harmed by hydrogen
sulfide unless we are miners. Still, the
gross odors need not be inhaled. Toning can
be done in daylight, so ventilation is
relatively easy. At the very least, the toner
tray can be covered.

With MGW, I have found that gold toner
applied after my usual selenium toner
produces a perfect neutral black tone.
Although I make portraits, and much prefer
the tone from selenium (kind of golden brown,
suggestive of a healthy tan on skin tones),
plain black is quite nice, too.

The gold toner method I use is the one from
Ed Buffaloe's website Unblinking Eye. A stock
of one per cent gold chloride is kept
dissolved in distilled water, stored in
darkness. A few milliliters of this solution
are added to a thiocyanate solution
(potassium, sodium or ammonium all seem to
work). This is then applied to the print. It
seems to me that the image tone is changed
almost immediately to black, and longer
immersion times do not change the result. I
usually let it sit in the gold toner for
three minutes, but that is just my arbitrary
decision.

I haven't experimented with gold toner after
brown toner (a sulfide toner). Same with
dying the paper base (I like relatively white
base color to bring up the warm tones.) I'm
fairly sure others on this forum have
remarked on using tea and such things to dye
the paper base of FB materials.

My website has more such pontifications from
me, under the 'technical' button on the table
of contents page.

regards,
--le
________________________________
Lloyd Erlick Portraits, Toronto.
website: www.heylloyd.com
telephone: 416-686-0326
email: portr...@heylloyd.com
________________________________
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